Evolution, Problems and Future of
Humanity.
Vsevolod Smirnoff.
Contents.- Before the industrial revolution. Industrial revolution and after it. Problems of the humanity. Problems within the humanity. .
About the future.
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Before the industrial revolution.
The life of primitive humans, hunters and gatherers, could not differ much from that of animals. It may be supposed that they lived in not very large groups of related people guided by the most capable of them. They must have defended from other groups a territory sufficient to maintain their life. If it ceased to be sufficient, the group or part of it must have gone away to look for some other available, dispersing the humanity on the globe. In the first stages of evolution of the humankind, its Individuals were adapting already for their needs objects obtained from the natural surroundings: arranged habitations, used hides for protection from cold, sharpened pebbles and bones for using them as tools or parts of weapons. It was the epoch of collecting fruits of forests and fields, and of hunting animals and other comestible creatures. However, locally evolution was more advanced. There were primitive agriculture and domestication of animals, pottery, tools and weapons of bronze, jewelry of gold, textiles. Agriculture was consequence and cause of the transformation of gatherers and hunters into farmers and artisans. Indeed, agriculture required settled life of people in plains with appropriate soil, permanent dwellings, more appropriate clothing, domesticated animals for food and work, know how of the agriculture and of the manufacture of products for the new mode of existence. Natural products consumed before by the humanity were replaced in growing proportion by the elaborated
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At first, population must have been growing, but very slowly because life was hard and hazardous. In comparison, the life of farmers and artisans was more comfortable and secure. Therefore, expansion of agriculture and handicraft was accompanied by certain acceleration of the increase of population and by its concentration in villages and then towns. At the same time, humanity became discriminated into the subdued poor majority, which produced, and the dominant opulent minority, which consumed. This division was accepted as natural, of divine will. The growth of population was not continuous. Increased density of population, particularly in towns, and the network of established terrestrial and maritime connections favored worldwide pandemias that from time to time exterminated considerable parts of it.
Satisfaction of human needs requires energy. At first, its only source was the human labor. However, progress of the evolution needed more and more energy. The main source of it became the domesticated animals; especially horses were used in agriculture, in manufacture and for the transportation of people and goods. Energy of currents of water and of the wind also served for milling grain and in manufacture; that of wind also for propulsion of vessels by sails. Energy of fire was of use for cooking, heating, lighting and in manufacture. The almost only fuel during the most part of that period of evolution was wood. Wood was also one of the most important materials for construction and for manufacture. At the same time forests were (and continue to be) felled and burnt, mainly to clear space for agriculture. So began the reduction of the surface occupied by forests, which never stopped. It was not the first break of the balance in the biosphere caused by the human population. Disappearance of animals of hunted species and the consequent lack of food may have contributed to the arrival of agriculture
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Industrial revolution and after it.
Mechanization of production and replacement of the power of living beings in agriculture, manufacture and transportation by obtained from inanimate sources began in United Kingdom. The first textile mills, water powered, were constructed in eighteenth century. Near the end of it, they were replaced by the steam powered. With it began the accelerated process of development and expansion of the industrialization. At the beginning of the next century started production of machine tools for metals and transport by railway, then came ships moved by vapor, petroleum, motors of internal combustion and automobiles, generation and use of electricity. In the twenties came aviation, electric and electronic communication, synthetic materials, nuclear energy, cosmic voyages, electro domestic equipment, unimaginable scientific and military things. The novelty was invention of the computer, a device that instead of physical labor replaced very efficiently the mental.
At 2007, the world population was about 6,600,000,000. At 2010, it may become about 6,800,000,000. It is estimated that at the middle of the eighteens century it was about 800,000,000. Acceleration of the increase of world population coincided with the industrial revolution. It was consequence of the decrease of infantile and senile mortality due to the progress of the medicine and to improvement of the conditions of life. Positive difference between births and deaths proportional to the population increases it in a geometric sequence if the proportion remains constant, and faster if it grows. At present, that proportion is low, even negative, in industrial and more civilized countries, and high in the remained behind, which means that the increase of population is of these countries.
Consumption of the primitive human beings was natural, of provision from the world of life as in case of other species. Today, almost the totality of supplies is product of complex elaboration of raw materials. However, more important is that apart of food primitive humanity required few means for the satisfaction of their needs, while the immense present day humanity produces and consumes infinite variety of products, and of the resources for their production.
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Production of biological raw materials is cultivation of plants and breeding of animals. Both functions require permanent and consumable material resources (including energy), production of which in its turn requires such means, and so forth (“permanent” means for repeated use, but not for ever).
Usual origin of non-biological materials is mining, i.e. extraction from the ground (superficial or from the depth) of solid, liquid and gaseous materials, some to be used directly as raw materials (or fossil fuels), others require previous elaboration (especially some metals).
Again, extraction and posterior elaboration need appropriate resources, which are products of elaboration requiring appropriate means as in case of biologic material. Manufacture of simple articles from raw materials, production of complex objects from parts, and building are incomparably more various than processes of the production of raw materials, and each needs material resources and energy as in case of production of raw materials. Moreover, part of the materials is lost in scrap, and of energy in processes of its production and use, due to fractional coefficients of efficiency of these operations.
Problems of the humanity.
Evidently, overall dimension of the exploitation of the Nature is astronomical. Our ancestors were living of the goods of Nature, we are wasting them. The problem is that fossil materials extracted for the purposes of humanity are products of conditions that subsisted on the earth millions and thousands of millions of years ago. Appropriate resources of them may be great or not, but they are not infinite. They are not sustainable forever. The problem is even worse. It would be logical to think on the future of the humanity, on the world of generations after generations of our descendents, and if not reduce, at least not increase the consumption. The reality is inverse: Pursuit of success (wealth, position in society) in the management of industry and competition imply efforts to produce and sell more. Means are amplification and modernization of the works, and publicity inciting to follow periodically changing fashion, to substitute the yet satisfactory ”antiquated” mass use devices by more complex and costly “modern”, or object of permanent use by similar of one time use, etc. These actions are accepted by the public, are common behavior and hardly will change in the near future. The effects are increase of the consumption and of the consequent to it waste of goods of Nature.
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Industries, transport, public services and everyday life of people require enormous quantities of energy. Water (potential energy of elevated levels of it) and enriched mineral of uranium (energy liberated by nuclear fission) are important prime sources of electricity. However, much more important is energy of fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas and coal).
Part of it is consumed directly. The other part is transformed in power stations in the electrical, distributed all over the civilized world. Fossil fuels are consumed also as such directly in the production, transport and as raw materials. Consumption of energy will continue to be growing with the increase of the world population and progress of the developing countries. The problem is that the greatest part of energy is product of the combustion of fossil fuels, provision of which is problematic. Indeed, total existence of them in the world is not known, but is not infinite, is not replenished and is being reduced by consumption at a high rate. There exist proved reserves of the fossil fuels for decades and continually are discovered new ones. There are resources that are not exploited because of elevated cost of it. However, it is expected that in near future will be reached maximum of the production of petroleum and natural gas, followed by a mild decline (this decline can be compensated by the Increase of the consumption of coal, reserves of which are much greater).
In many countries, nuclear energy replaces in more or less important part that of fossil fuels for power plants. The advantages of the nuclear energy are that provision of uranium for its generation for the time being may sustain whatever growth of its consumption, and that it does not pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. However, there are also problems. One is production of radioactive wastes; the other is psychological and political: in some parts, nuclear energy is rejected as dangerous. It can be added that scientists are working since fifty years on the control of nuclear fusion. In case of success, it might become the most ample, sustainable and less polluting source of thermal energy.
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Hydropower is sustainable, clean and low-priced. However, it represents a quite small fraction of the global power, and cannot grow much. Damming great rivers in plains overflows great extensions of land, usually inhabited, and there hardly remain many acceptable sites for doing it. Besides, hydropower is exposed to variations depending on climatic conditions. There is growing the use of some other kinds of energy: solar, aeolian and of vegetable oil fuel. Main defect of the first two systems is the discontinuous providing of the energy, because appropriate means of its storage do not exist yet. Defect of the vegetal oil fuel is that cultivation of vegetables for its production replaces cultivation for food, reducing necessary reserves of them. Other natural sources of energy (e.g. of tides or of difference of temperatures on the surface of oceans and in the depth) at least are considered. Anyway, dimensions of all these sources of energy are minuscule in comparison with fossil fuels.
Combustion of the fossil fuels provides the energy, but with it produces the harmful pollution of the atmosphere, and power plants discharge much heat in the environment. Byproduct of their combustion is carbon dioxide. It increases the proportion of that gas in the atmosphere (that increase is enlarged by the deforestation, which reduces the consumption of the gas by the vegetation).
The consequence of that increase is aggravation of the greenhouse effect that causes the global warming. To it, are attributed beginning of the melting of polar ice and glaciers and of the consequent elevation of the level of oceans, as also the observed increase of intensity and frequency of catastrophic meteorological phenomena and of changes in the climate, and the related with it of biosphere. All this, increasing, may cause in future much suffering and victims, i.e. have negative effect on the wellbeing and progress of the human race, especially of the lower socially part of it. Relation between the quantities of energy and the carbon dioxide produced by the combustion of fossil fuels depends on the content of carbon in their composition. Apart the impurities, coal is carbon and therefore produces the maximum of carbon dioxide. Natural gas produces the minimum because its components are the lightest carbohydrates. The problem is that natural gas cannot become the principal fuel because its reserves are the smallest.
The Essay on Increasing population
Increasing population poses a greater threat to the future of our planet than consumption. Hinrichsen explains the effects of population to our environment. As the world population grows, the demand for natural resources also increases. Consumption poses a threat in the sense that it is needed to accommodate the world’s population. It is possible to reduce consumption the lesser population ...
Phenomena due to the Increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mentioned above, are not the only harmful effects of the combustion of fossil fuels. Smog, dangerous for children and the aged, and acid rains that harm the forests and poison the lakes, are products of pollution of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and toxic impurities. Coal not only pollutes the atmosphere, its combustion generates also great quantities of toxic ash. Nuclear power plants, though do not generate carbon dioxide and pollute the air, do produce radioactive wastes, getting rid of which is a not yet resolved problem.
Of course, combustion of fossil fuels is not the only cause of pollution. Humanity already is enormous, grows rapidly, produces and consummates much, and so produces much domestic and industrial waste: solid, liquid and gaseous There exist both simple and advanced procedures for treatment of the different kinds of waste. Appropriate treatment of the waste, which includes recovering, recycling and the production of manure from the biomass, reduces the pollution and infection of the environment, and at the same time contributes to the production of raw materials and food. Advanced countries succeeded to reduce the pollution in their territories due to wastes; not so at least some of the developing. The problem may be triple: unsatisfactory waste management, insufficient financing and poor discipline of the people.
The humanity is damaging the planet not only by the pollution of the Nature. Considerable portions of land are covered by the constructions of cities and roads, by wastes of mining and of other origins, are spoiled by petrol in oil fields, eroded or transformed in deserts by defective utilization. Land for future amplification of agriculture decreases, while the human population is growing and production of nutritional goods is substituted in increasing proportion by not comestible (as the vegetable oil fuel).
Almost the total extension of seas and oceans is polluted more or less according to the density of the neighboring populations and influence of their activities; fishing is affected by overexploitation.
Sustention of whatever life on earth requires fresh water. The humanity needs much more water than this. Agriculture consumes water for irrigation, in power plants it is converted in steam and is used for cooling, it is required in industry for production and maintenance, civilized people, especially in cities, spends much water for personal needs. Rivers and lakes of sufficient size and not too distant for provision of the fresh water from them to cities and industrial centers do not exist everywhere. Other common source of water is aquifers, much more dispersed resources of fresh water at different depths underground. Seawater desalination is used exceptionally because it is energy intensive. There is much fresh water in the polar ice. However, make use of it is not practical. Problem concerning the fresh water is not the global lack of it, but the growing geographic discrepancy between the distribution of the human population and the availability of fresh water. Anyway, it seems that lack of fresh water will become rather soon a serious problem for a great part of the humanity.
According to Darwinism, species of animals that survive are the adapted to their medium. The primitive humanity evidently was adapted. However, with the progress of evolution relation of the humankind with the medium became inverted: instead of adapting themselves to the Nature, the humans began to adapt the Nature to their needs and exploit it.
Problems within the humanity.
Modernization of industry (includes agriculture) of the developing countries increases the need of skilled workers and reduces that of unskilled. Unemployed from the country go to cities where they augment the necessitous population of unoccupied or of exploited inhabitants of the miserable sections of them or of suburbs. Such abodes exist at least in some of the developed countries too. However, their inhabitants are often legal and illegal immigrants. Experiments with animals proved that their agglomeration beyond certain limit of density provokes aggression, growing with its increase. The same occurs to the populations of necessitous in great cities. The other factor is the influence of the visible great difference between them and the prosperous public. The consequences are acts of vandalism and crimes committed by individuals and, sometimes, by the mob.
Population of the globe is distributed between countries. Their populations are from minuscule to enormous. The same occurs to the surface occupied by different countries. These two distributions are not proportional and density of population (persons by unit of surface) is very variable too. However, locally it has a limit depending on the possibility to sustain an acceptable standard of life (dependable on the circumstances).
The situation may become critical with the increase of an already high density of population of a great developing country, while density in a neighboring territory is low.
Humanity is divided in infinity of groups constituting different hierarchic systems, belonging each person to a selection of them. Members of each of these groups use to be firmly convinced that it is utterly superior to any other of the same system: ethnic, religious, ideological, political etc. It is not difficult to induce mutual animosity, if it did not exist already. Terrorism is product of such animosity. War is considered to be decisive means of obtaining desired results (when the government is sure that can gain it).
In principle, people may be against the war, but propaganda and false information will produce the impression that the fatherland is in danger of aggression and needs protection by the preventive war. The problem is that modern wars are cause of the enormities of destruction of civil and military objects, and of consumption of military provisions. Wars are cause, even in peace, of the permanent maintenance and modernization of military forces, which sustains the corresponding industry and increases considerably the consumption of materials and energy.
The most serious menace for the humanity is the three kinds of mass destruction weapons. Chemical weapons were used in the First World War in spite of being prohibited. In the Second, the opposed military forces were prepared for the chemical warfare, but did not start it. During that war, on both sides was tried hard to create nuclear bomb. Who succeeded first, used this new weapon with catastrophic consequences for the attacked country. After the war, the permanent members of the Security Council of United Nations, armed with nuclear weapons, tried unsuccessfully to avoid their possession by other countries. Today, there are sufficient nuclear weapons to eliminate at least a great deal of life on the earth, and two motives for anxiety. One is that some error in the system of control of nuclear weapons in a developing nation may cause launching of a nuclear missile and the consequences. The other is that insufficient security may permit to terrorists obtain weapons or at least nuclear material for their fabrication. As to biological mass destruction weapons, their possession is not exclusive. Therefore, they were not used in the Second World War.
About the future.
The fundamental problem of the humanity is that it is numerous, its growth is accelerated, and at the same time the rate of consumption of natural resources is elevated and is increasing too. If the humankind will continue to grow and to consume even more than proportionally, the damage beyond recovery caused to the Nature also will continue to increase, as will increase the consequent complications and adversities in the human life. That is what will occur, at least in near future, because necessary great changes, even if they do occur, will require much time.
Population of the economically advanced countries tends to diminish. That of the rest augments, and they are far yet from becoming advanced. In one of he most populated of them is tried to reduce the rate of births. The problem is the consequent aging of the population due to simultaneous increase of the expectation of life. Anyway, estimated world population for 2050 is about nine thousand millions. As to the consumption, there are at least three reasons for its growth: increase of the population, progress of the developing economically great populations and competition, i.e. the effort to reach and surpass the level of other competitors. E.g. changes of fashion increase the demand and offer the opportunity to promote own proposals. The same occurs with the “modernization” of complex objects (amplification of forms of their use).
To my knowledge nowhere is attempted reduction of exaggerated consumption. Possibility of doing it in democratic countries is quite improbable.
One can expect in the near future continual aggravation of the catastrophic consequences of the global warming, of global pollution, of the increase of the density of population and of gradual exhausting of at least some of the natural resources. At the same time will continue to grow, mainly in cities, population of the necessitous, increasing by positive birth rate and by the progressing modernization of the industry, requiring less unskilled workers. With increasing indigence in cities will increase vandalism, criminality and disorders. Even more dangerous may become differences, or some combinations of them, between countries. They may be true motives of wars attributed to more noble causes. History of the humanity is history of wars.
It is evident that the present trend of development of the humanity is not sustainable. Exploitation of the Nature is excessive and should be reduced, which implies the reduction of world population and of he rate of consumption.. Should be reduced also the excessive differences between reach and poor people, and between nations. All this seems to be clear. What by no means is clear is what, how and how soon it can be done, if it is possible and not too late yet. If it is not done intentionally, it may at last occur by itself. Catastrophic mortality due to terribly aggravated conditions of life and pandémias, or, more probable, mutual extermination and destruction by mass destruction weapons in wars, can reduce the rests of population and their life to levels centuries ago.
The statement “what, how and how soon it can be done” is indefinite. To my knowledge, there does not exist at least some appropriate entity for study of the future of humanity. The first great problem would be change the attitude of people and of the authorities. Up to now, people want satisfaction of their needs and ambitions, and amusement in their life. They even do not think of the future of their descendents, and the authorities have enough troubles with problems at most of the near future. Alterations in favor of the future of humanity would imply deprivations, unpopular and therefore unacceptable for politics. .
Mar. 2008.
